title: Hydrophilic interaction ultra-high performance liquid chromatography coupled with triple quadrupole mass spectrometry for determination of nucleotides, nucleosides and nucleobases in Ziziphus plants.
abstract: In this study, a rapid and sensitive analytical method was developed for the determination of 20 nucleobases, nucleosides and nucleotides in Ziziphus plants at trace levels by using hydrophilic interaction ultra-high performance liquid chromatography coupled with triple-quadrupole tandem mass spectrometry (HILIC-UHPLC-TQ-MS/MS) in multiple-reaction monitoring (MRM) mode. Under the optimized chromatographic conditions, good separation for 20 target compounds were obtained on a UHPLC Amide column with sub-2μm particles within 10min. The overall LODs and LOQs were between 0.11-3.12ngmL(-1) and 0.29-12.48ngmL(-1) for the 20 analytes, respectively. It is the first report about simultaneous analysis of nucleobases, nucleosides and nucleotides in medicinal plants using HILIC-UHPLC-TQ-MS/MS method, which affords good linearity, precision, repeatability and accuracy. The developed method was successfully applied to Ziziphus plant (Z. jujuba, Z. jujuba var. spinosa and Z. mauritiana) samples. The analysis showed that the fruits and leaves of Ziziphus plants are rich in nucleosides and nucleobases as well as nucleotides, and could be selected as the healthy food resources. Our results in present study suggest that HILIC-UHPLC-TQ-MS/MS method could be employed as a useful tool for quality assessment of the samples from the Ziziphus plants as well as other medicinal plants or food samples using nucleotides, nucleosides and nucleobases as markers.
authors.affiliation: Jiangsu Key Laboratory for High Technology Research of TCM Formulae, Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine, Nanjing 210023, China.
authors.forename: Sheng
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Guo
authors.forename: Jin-ao
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Duan
authors.forename: Dawei
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Qian
authors.forename: Hanqing
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Yuping
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Tang
authors.forename: Yefei
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Qian
authors.forename: Dawei
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Wu
authors.forename: Shulan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Su
authors.forename: Erxin
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Shang
mesh_terms: D002851:Chromatography, High Pressure Liquid / Q000379:methods; D005638:Fruit / Q000737:chemistry; D057927:Hydrophobic and Hydrophilic Interactions; D057230:Limit of Detection; D009705:Nucleosides / Q000032:analysis*; D009711:Nucleotides / Q000032:analysis*; D025341:Principal Component Analysis; D011687:Purines / Q000032:analysis*; D011743:Pyrimidines / Q000032:analysis*; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D053719:Tandem Mass Spectrometry / Q000379:methods*; D031957:Ziziphus / Q000737:chemistry*
chemical_list: D009705:Nucleosides; D009711:Nucleotides; D011687:Purines; D011743:Pyrimidines
keywords: HILIC–UHPLC-TQ-MS/MS; Nucleobases; Nucleosides; Nucleotides; Ziziphus